


See How The Light Shines Through Him

by perdiccas



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Dark, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sexual Assault, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-03-12
Updated: 2009-03-12
Packaged: 2017-10-02 10:36:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perdiccas/pseuds/perdiccas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Luke is among the detainees that Rebel's forces break free from a government facility. Sylar finds himself saddled with the kid, again, when no one else will take him, but Luke is more broken than he ever was before. (Luke is 17.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	See How The Light Shines Through Him

**Author's Note:**

> [ ](http://photobucket.com)

Three weeks pass before Sylar wonders where Luke went. He's driving along a long, desolate highway and passes the Burnt Toast Diner. Sylar almost misses having someone to gloat to about the pretty red-haired waitress that he'd killed there.

The thought is gone as soon as Sylar notices the dark car tailing him.

***

Nearly four months on the run and Sylar's kept one step ahead of Homeland Security. It helps that for the past month every time they get too near, someone named Rebel lets Sylar know.

It's three pm and he's stopped in a diner when the phone in his pocket vibrates. Sylar scans the room but doesn't see any immediate threats.

TIME TO REPAY THE FAVOR, the message says.

"Yeah right," Sylar mutters and deletes it.

IF I CAN GET A MESSAGE TO YOU, I CAN TELL THEM WHERE YOU ARE.

That one's more convincing.

7.30 PM. NEXT TOWN OVER. PIZZA PLACE ACROSS FROM CITY HALL.

Sylar drains the last of his coffee and decides a little reconnaissance is in order.

***

The last thing Sylar ever expects is to be splitting a pizza with Claire Bennet and sharing a bottle of the house white as she passes him blueprints under the table.

"Where's your Daddy?" he asks as he leans in and kisses her on the cheek goodbye.

"Where's yours?" she snaps, eyes blazing above her false smile. "Don't screw this up, Sylar."

They break into a maximum security facility at 02.38 exactly. Sylar takes out twenty-seven guards; they free fourteen prisoners. Claire gives her blood to the two that get caught in the crossfire.

***

"Where do you think you're going?" Claire hisses. She grabs his arm and yanks him back as Sylar tries to saunter from the room. He turns slowly, leering at her just to watch her huff and flush.

"Well now, Claire-bear. I didn't know you cared."

"I don't _care_, Sylar. What about him?"

She jerks her chin at Luke. Sylar looks over her shoulder at the kid sitting sullenly in the corner. His head is bowed and his eyes are black. They've dressed him in a cast off sweatshirt that looks several sizes too big. He's quieter and far more still than Sylar remembers but he doesn't doubt that Luke is still the same pain in the ass.

"He's all yours," Sylar says graciously. "Isn't that what you wanted, little girl? To save the people who need saving? Well there he is, go save him."

She only glares.

"Should you really be pawning people off on monsters, Claire?"

"He's no better than you," she spits.

Sylar wonders if Claire's seen Luke's sadism first hand.

"So kill him," he says with a shrug.

She looks around at Peter and Sylar thinks that maybe she's already had that idea shot down.

"Oh Claire," he says, pinching her cheek, laughing when she slaps his hand away. "You want me to take him so I'll get rid of him and your hands stay clean. That's not very heroic, now is it?"

"You owe him," she grinds out.

"Owe him? He owes me for not killing him when I had the chance."

She slaps a manila folder against his chest. "Read his file, Sylar. He never said a word. If he'd cracked they would've had you."

***

They get a car, courtesy of Rebel and directions to a safe house. Sylar isn't usually one for following orders, but he wants to see how this all pans out. Luke's riding shotgun, staring out the window.

"So what'd they do to you?" Sylar asks.

He'd skimmed the file but the government knows well enough to keep anything incriminating under lock and key. The pages were filled with words like 'level ten interrogation techniques' and 'any means necessary' but skipped over the grisly details. Luke had been picked up two days after Sylar left him.

"Luke? Hello? What did they do to you?"

Sylar waves his hand in front of Luke's face but still gets no reaction.

"So, what? You're not gonna talk to me?"

He turns his head to glare but Luke stares stoically at his knees.

"Fine by me," Sylar says.

He taps his fingers on the steering wheel, waiting for Luke to crack and fill in the awkward gaps with his idiotic prattle.

The silence drags on for three hours.

With a screech of burning rubber, Sylar pulls over. He turns angrily and smacks Luke against the window, telekinetic fingers curling cruelly around his neck.

"I asked you a question, Luke," he growls.

Luke stares back at him impassive.

"_He never said a word._" Claire's voice echoes in his memory. Sylar lets Luke drop free.

Luke pulls his knees to his chest, resting his head in his folded arms as Sylar pants heavily in frustration.

"Did they cut your tongue out?" he asks, only half sarcastic.

Luke shakes his head silently and Sylar restarts the car.

***

They settle in a no-name neighbourhood in a no-name city; the apartment they find is nondescript. Sylar tells the landlady that his name is Agent Simmons, Special Ops. He lowers his voice to explain that Luke is his nephew, recently orphaned. She's a kindly woman who nods her head in sympathy.

"The poor dear," she murmurs, watching Luke where he sits in the corner, sullen and withdrawn.

"You're a good man, Agent Simmons," she says, patting him on the arm as she knocks fifty bucks off the rent.

Every Thursday, she leaves a tuna casserole outside their door. It doesn't matter how nicely, or not, Sylar asks him, Luke won't reheat them with his power. They eat every casserole with a burnt crust because Sylar always leaves them in the oven five minutes too long.

Around the apartment, Luke's a shadow. The only time Sylar knows he's there is when it's dark and Luke screams out in his sleep. In the morning, Luke will leave the room, silently scowling, if Sylar asks him how he slept.

***

Three weeks pass before Sylar notices the window propped open in the hall. It's nearing October and the apartment rattles enough already with draughts. Money is tight and the grocery store doesn't accept household objects turned to gold. Every night, Luke sits on the sofa in layers upon layers of sweaters and shirts with his arms wrapped around himself in silence until Sylar can take the sight no more and turns up the thermostat to temperatures they can't afford.

Now, he's pissed. He wants to slap the ungrateful brat for wasting what little Sylar has when he won't pull his weight around the house. Sylar slides through the window, feet first onto the fire escape below. He moves quietly because there's a part of him he won't acknowledge that wonders if Luke sits out here, contemplating death. Even if he can catch him with as little as a thought, Sylar doesn't want to be the one that startles Luke into jumping.

What he finds is what he'd never expect: Luke with a stray tabby in his arms, almost smiling as he feeds it scraps of the casserole that Luke refused to eat the night before. At his feet there's a dish that Sylar's thought missing for days, half-filled with milk.

They stare at each other in silence. Luke holds the cat tighter and it starts to squirm against his chest, yowling its discomfort as Luke pets it roughly and tries to calm it, hissing, "Shhh! Shhh!" The cat growls back and struggles. Luke is shaking now, taking laboured, panicked breaths, twisting where he stands to stop the stray from clawing free. He knocks the milk dish with his foot and it hurtles five stories to shatter in the alley down below.

"Luke," Sylar warns, stepping forward as Luke staggers too near to the railing, cat still in hand. "Come on. Just… just bring it inside. We can keep it inside."

Sylar doesn't want a pet, he'd barely wanted Luke, but now his heart is pounding as he sees Luke teeter so close to the edge. Luke only glares at him, eyes wet and red rimmed, and turns away, setting the cat down safely on the fire escape stairs. It darts off, with a hiss and a swipe of its paw as Luke tries to scratch it behind the ears.

"Luke…" Sylar says but Luke shoulders past him, mute.

Luke's locked himself in his bedroom by the time Sylar clambers back inside.

***

Where Luke was silent, now he's unresponsive. Sylar yells and talks and threatens; he throws Luke like a rag doll across the room and there's nothing, not even a whispered sigh of pain.

It takes five days for the cartons to pile up in the fridge. Since the milk is spoiling anyway, Sylar pours the oldest into a garish, chipped dish, and slips outside the window.

On the fire escape, there's a smell worse than week old milk. Sylar finds the cat's fetid, rotting body beneath a swarm of flies and feasting maggots. He gags and drops the milk. The dish rattles and spins where it lands, spilling a frigid white splash over Sylar's feet. Using telekinesis to keep the flies at bay, Sylar can see the cat's stomach has burst, fur charred where Luke has cooked the tabby alive.

He fetches an old towel and holds his breath as he bundles up the corpse. He drops it down the garbage chute and nails the window shut. If Luke asks, Sylar will tell him it's to keep out the cold.

Luke never asks.

***

There's been radio silence from Rebel since the night they broke Luke free; Sylar isn't expecting it when his phone beeps with the message: YOUR LOCATION HAS BEEN COMPROMISED. GET OUT NOW.

He scrambles for the duffle bags they keep ready-packed by the door and grabs Luke by the scruff of his neck, shoving the latest casserole, still saran wrapped, into his arms.

"We have to go. Now," he says. Luke's eyes go wide with fear and he trembles. Sylar wonders, again, what the government did to him in the four months they were apart, but now isn't the time to pick that scab. He pushes Luke ahead of him and bundles him into the car.

***

Three hundred miles and two ditched cars, and Sylar thinks they're safe. They cruise into a downtrodden town, not so small that as strangers they'll stand out. Sylar parks at a grocery store, looking for supplies before they even think about a finding a motel; they need hair dye and scissors, new clothes and dark glasses.

The automatic doors slide open. Luke stands in the threshold of the store. The air conditioning inside whispers through to cool Sylar's neck when the first shot rings out. Luke ducks down but there isn't any cover. Sylar stands in front of him and takes the snipers' bullets to his chest.

As he's toppling backwards with the impact, dying and regenerating in equal measure, he hears Luke wail. There's a sudden, explosive burst of microwaves and Sylar's cooked through too quickly to tell him that they need to be smart, that lashing out without a plan will do more harm than good.

When Sylar wakes, he understands for the first time what deathly silence means. Luke is huddled against the brick wall of the store, his knees pulled to his chest and his face an ashen white. Everything around them that could melt has melted; flames are blazing where what burns has caught alight. The air is thick with the stench of death. There are blistered bodies in the grocery store, and the snipers are popped corpses in the distance. Birds have fallen from the trees that line the lot; the trees themselves look scorched and twisted.

Sylar grabs Luke and leads him by the hand. They step over body upon body as Sylar drags him through the store, collecting what they need. The Luke that Sylar knew would have been crowing in delight at the carnage all around them, but now Luke trots behind him like a zombie, the hand fiercely clinging to the back of Sylar's shirt the only sign that Luke is alive within his body.

In the lot, every car they try is fried beyond repair. They stagger half a mile down the road, Luke's palm tightly clasped to Sylar's, before they find a truck that starts.

***

In a gas station bathroom, Sylar dyes Luke's hair a deep, dark brown that will help them pass as brothers. He makes Luke shut his eyes and does his eyebrows too, smearing the dye messily with his fingertips. Sylar cuts his own hair short while he waits for the dye to set. Luke stands completely passive, surrounded by the bitter fumes and when Sylar washes it out, Luke's scalp and hairline are an angry, irritated red. He hasn't made a sound.

***

They're on the road for three days straight, sleeping in the car and eating cold tuna casserole directly from the dish. Instead of hot wiring a new car, Sylar swaps out the plates, a new set for every two towns they pass through. He uses telekinesis to screw the old plates onto the cars they steal from. It'll be days at least before anyone realises that their license plates have mysteriously changed.

Tired and on edge, Sylar's sick of the silence that's broken only by public radio. He's sick of Luke's stubborn sulking and he's really fucking sick of eating unrefrigerated noodle goop morning, noon and night. He pulls into the first no tell motel they find. He needs a shower and he needs a bed. What he doesn't need is the way Luke quivers, microwaves pulsing from him like an aura when Sylar tells him to stay put while he gets the room. They're too conspicuous together; Sylar's heard the news reports calling for their heads.

Luke's crying when Sylar gets back with room keys in hand, less than ten minutes later. For all of his sullenness, this is the first time Sylar's seen Luke break down.

"Come on," Sylar says, voice gruff. "Don't make a scene."

Luke wipes his eyes on his sleeve and sniffles loudly.

"Come on," Sylar says again, gentler this time. He takes Luke's hand and helps him from the car. Microwaves beat softly against Sylar's palm.

***

"Here," Sylar says as he slaps the remote into Luke's hand. "You can watch whatever you want. Just keep the sound down. Rent a porno or something."

Luke doesn't laugh and doesn't move; he barely looks at Sylar. Sylar uses telekinesis to jab the buttons on the TV set itself, leaves it on a telenovela and shoves Luke into a chair in front of it.

"Sit and stay out of trouble," he orders, kicking off his shoes and climbing into bed.

***

There's no reason for Sylar to wake when he does. There's no sound to disturb him or fevered nightmare from which he needs to escape. If he were younger, if this were Montana, if he hadn't met his father and he still thought the universe held some greater purpose for him, Sylar would have called it fate.

Bleary eyed, he looks around. Luke isn't in the chair where Sylar left him and he isn't in the twin bed across the room. There's light seeping from behind the not-quite-closed bathroom door and when Sylar cocks his head, he hears a faint, muffled whimper of pain.

"Luke?" he asks, to no response.

"Luke?" he asks again. He raps twice on the bathroom door and barges in because if Luke's just taking a leak, he'd surely have told Sylar to fuck off by now.

Instead, Sylar finds him gripping Sylar's razor, white knuckled and slumped against the sink. One wrist has a jagged, rough edged gash. Under the harsh fluorescent lights, Luke's blood is a slick, bright crimson splash against the porcelain white tiles.

Sylar doesn't think, he acts. He wrenches the razor from Luke's grip and slashes his own wrist too. With telekinesis to force the cut open and keep his body from healing, he slaps the gaping wound down over Luke's. He circles both their wrists with his other hand and clenches them tight together, waiting for his blood to mingle with Luke's and save him.

Luke tries to pull away.

"No!" he cries weakly, tugging and tugging, not strong enough to break free. He tries to fry Sylar, to force him off that way, but he's lost too much blood and he doesn't have the energy to give off a wave big enough to beat Sylar's regeneration.

More than knowing Luke has tried to kill himself, it's seeing him fight for death, not against it; it's knowing that in the months since he'd been saved, ending his own life is the only thing Luke has cared enough about to stand up to Sylar, that makes Sylar sick to the pit of his stomach.

Luke heals and he flings himself away from Sylar, screaming, "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Me?" Sylar shouts back. "What the fuck do you think you're doing? I didn't come back for you so you could just give up!"

"You didn't come back for me at all," Luke hisses.

"Luke-"

"Don't lie to me, Sylar," he grits, in perfect parody of Sylar's voice.

Sylar slaps Luke across the face.

The cut on his lip doesn't heal.

They stand and stare at one another, splattered with blood and panting heavily. Luke tries to step past him but Sylar grabs him by the shoulders. Then, Luke is clutching at his shirt and pulling him near. Sylar folds his arms around him, holding him tight against his chest as Luke sobs into his neck. They slide down to the tiled floor, still tacky with Luke's spilt blood and spend the night not letting each other go.

When Sylar falls asleep again, Luke's hair is as damp with his tears as his shirt is with Luke's.

***

Privacy is a thing of the past. No matter what the town or what the motel, Sylar doesn't trust Luke behind closed doors and, by now, they've seen each other shit and piss and shower.

Sylar's seen the silver-white scars that criss-cross Luke's back. He's seen the pockmarked cigarette burns, starting at the crooks of Luke's elbows, daubed all up his arms. There are rows and cross-hatches scored along Luke's inner thighs. Sylar doesn't know which wounds are his father's and which ones are the government. He doesn't want to know how many, if any, were Luke himself. He checks Luke over everyday, flicking his eyes up and down Luke's body as Luke stands before the mirror, brushing his teeth. There won't be any more scars while Sylar's watching.

***

Early morning; Luke showers first. They have a routine now. Sylar checks the news and secures the perimeter, planning their next move with half an eye on Luke as he potters about the bathroom. If Luke doesn't try to kill himself, he's kept up his end of the bargain. While Sylar showers, Luke sits at the head of the bed or the foot of the bed or in the bathroom doorway itself, anywhere he likes as long as Sylar can see him. Sylar makes him read the newspaper aloud. Luke never reads the headlines or the sports pages. He jumps at random from the local police blotter to current affairs in South East Asian countries that Sylar suspects Luke's never heard of. Sometimes, on good days, he'll read Sylar all the comics: Dick Tracy, Marmaduke, Family Circus and Mary Worth, adding his own commentary on how the panels have been drawn. It's the only thing these days that Luke seems to have an opinion on. More often than not, the fifteen minutes that Sylar takes to shower is the only time he'll hear Luke's voice.

Today, the morning news is over and Sylar's made up his mind: they'll move on in the afternoon and find a new town to squat in for a week or so. Luke still isn't out the shower. Sylar can see his silhouette through the plastic shower curtain. He's standing with his head bowed beneath the spray. The only time Luke cries, now, is when he's in the shower, the pound of the water against the tiles masking his shuddering sobs. But it isn't that that's keeping him because when the water finally shuts off and Luke pulls back the curtain, his eyes aren't red and his face isn't puffy.

He skims a towel over his body and Sylar's eyes flick through the daily catalogue of scars. When his gaze hits Luke's groin, Sylar flushes and looks away. Luke's cock is half-hard, plump between his thighs and Sylar thinks that Luke stood in the shower trying to will his burgeoning erection away. Sylar looks again; he can't not look just because he'd rather not see. He studies Luke's face, the way he frowns, angry, confused and scared, scowling down at his traitorous crotch.

He sits heavily on the rim of the tub, sighing sadly as he grasps his dick. After so many weeks of watching, it seems as wrong for Sylar to look away as it is to look when Luke's fist starts to move in jerky, erratic lurches. His eyes screw shut and he whimpers pitifully, biting down on his lip so hard that blood trickles down his chin. When he comes, it's with a forlorn grunt.

Luke stands on unsteady legs in front of the bathroom sink. He turns his palm this way and that, staring at the shimmering coat of semen that overlays his skin. In the mirror, Luke stares straight at him. His eyes are cold and hard and distant as he washes his soiled skin clean. Sylar's chest feels tight and his gut clenches when he thinks about what Luke might have been forced to do in custody.

At the next motel, Sylar lets Luke shut the door.

***

They still live in motels and on the road but not at the same frantic pace. They stay in each town for weeks at a time, straddling the fine line between being so reclusive that it causes people to notice and going out so much it jeopardises their cover.

Sylar takes Luke with him on every errand he runs. Now, it's Sylar's babbling that fills the car, talking at Luke simply to hear _someone_'s voice, even if it's only his own. The time when Luke wouldn't shut up seems like a lifetime ago; Sylar can barely remember who that cocksure kid was. But every once in a while, when Sylar says something outrageous just to bait him, lying seamlessly about the things he's done or the people he's killed to goad Luke into calling his bluff, Sylar thinks he catches Luke rolling his eyes.

***

They're in a convenience store on the outskirts of town. Sylar likes chocolate and Luke likes potato chips. Sylar slapped twenty bucks into Luke's palm and told him to go wild. He's in the back of the store choosing snacks while Sylar pays for gas.

The rack of magazines by the counter catches Sylar's eye. The interminable silences in the car are getting to him again and he thinks that maybe if he buys something that Luke will like then Luke will read to him without being forced. But when it comes time to picking what Luke might want, Sylar realises he doesn't know much about Luke at all. When Luke would talk, Sylar wasn't listening and now when all Sylar does is sit with his ears pricked to hear anything at all, Luke has nothing to say. He buys everything that he sees, shoving them all in a paper bag before Luke makes it to the counter, arms loaded with chips and candy.

"Here," Sylar says gruffly, shoving the magazines at Luke when they pull out of the gas station.

Luke looks at him warily and at the mound that he's been given. He fans them out and Sylar can see National Geographic, Guns &amp; Ammo, US Weekly and skin mags. Luke barely glances at the porn before shuffling it to the bottom of the pile. He thumbs through the centre pictorial in National Geographic and when Sylar glances over, he sees that it's a spread about Angkor Wat. Luke caresses the photos with the pads of his fingers, tracing the skylines of the temples. Sylar wonders if there's more to Luke's fascination with the South East Asian headlines he picks to read.

Then, Luke looks up suddenly and catches Sylar staring. The air in the car seems thick with oppressive expectations. Luke closes the magazine neatly and dumps the pile in the backseat foot well. Sylar grips the steering wheel until his knuckles turn white and he cracks his neck, pushing away the urge to snap Luke's.

When Sylar's eyes are focused pointedly on the road ahead, he hears Luke mumble, "Thank you."

***

It's dusk and the light is low. They pass a sign touting the next motel; "Colour TVs! Only $29.99 A Night!" They're half a mile away when Sylar hits a deer.

There's a dent in the hood of the car and the deer is a broken mass by the side of the road, still twitching and bleeding. Sylar gets out to survey the damage and Luke follows wordlessly. While Sylar's swearing at a shattered headlight, he sees Luke approach the deer.

"Don't get too close," he warns, a telekinetic hand on Luke's shoulder pulling him back.

"I wanna see," Luke whines and it's so much like the grating petulance Sylar's begun to think he'd never hear again that he drops his hold and lets Luke inch forward, standing beside Luke as he crouches down and reaches out to pet the deer's torn flank.

"Do you think it'll be ok?" Luke asks.

There's a deep gash down the deer's side, one back leg is crushed to a pulp and the other's at a twisted angle beneath the deer's body. Its struggles are getting weaker and it hasn't managed to drag itself into the underbrush beside the road.

"No."

Sylar's never heard the sounds a deer can make; Luke's the one who used to wade out into nature. It keens softly in pain.

"Come on," he says. He'll wait for Luke to turn his back and then snap the creature's neck.

But, Luke doesn't move except to hold out his palm. It's the most controlled Sylar's seen him with his ability. It's the first time since he's been rescued that Sylar's seen him use it willingly and consciously, and not in panicked self-defence. The deer screeches as its blood bubbles through its pores.

"Heh," Luke chuckles. He nudges the deer with the toe of his boot. "Cool."

Sylar's dumbfounded. He thinks Luke might have just had fun.

He incinerates the carcass with a quick zap of electricity. They stand and watch it burn, smiling shyly at one another. When they get back in the car, their hair reeks of cooked flesh.

***

It's two am and Sylar wakes when his bed dips at his side. Luke raises the sheet and slides in beside him.

"Luke?" he whispers before Luke's mouth latches over his.

Luke scrabbles over him, clutching at Sylar's arms, digging his nails to Sylar's biceps and bearing down with his full weight to keep them as tight together as he can. Through the thin fabric of Luke's boxers, Sylar can feel Luke's erection thrusting feverishly against his belly.

"Luke," he says. "Don't."

But Luke only grunts and grinds down harder, his hips snapping quicker as he kisses the breath from Sylar's mouth.

"No," Sylar says. He holds Luke away by his shoulders, making him sit up and straddle him. Nothing can stop the frenetic circling of his hips.

"Please," Luke whimpers, lashes shining with almost unshed tears. "_Please_."

It's the only thing Luke's asked of him in months; Sylar can't say no.

He lies with his legs spread, chest tight as Luke's knee wedges between his thighs. Luke bites up his neck and ruts against his hip, sliding his cock along the groove there as his tears dampen Sylar's skin where he tucks his nose beneath Sylar's jaw.

Sylar slides his hands up Luke's back to hold him steady, to push him away, to comfort him? Sylar doesn't know, but as Luke's t-shirt rucks up under Sylar's hands and his palms stroke over bare skin, flashes of what Luke's never told him fly at him from all sides.

_Luke on his knees with his hands bound behind his back; no light, no sound, barely any air. _

*

Luke chained to a chair, arms strapped to wide bar and stretched painfully above his head. Tinfoil cuts into his palms and when Luke's power pulses out, the metal sparks and he only fries his own palms. The stench of seared flesh is all he smells.

*

Luke in an interrogation room, photos scattered out in front of him.

"Look!" someone screams at him.

Rough hands on Luke's jaw, wrenching his neck around. Clawing fingers at his eyes, forcing them open to see what lies upon the table. Picture after picture of Sylar's victims, skulls ripped open and bodies impaled.

"This is who you're protecting."

*

Luke curled in a corner, the room so cold he's shaking, fingers blue as he huddles against the metal wall that stops him from using his ability to heat himself. He's sitting in a puddle of his own urine, skin chafed raw. Under the orange jumpsuit, his body is black and blue with bruises.

*

Burly guards that strip Luke naked, throwing ice water over his trembling, emaciated body. They kick and punch and bludgeon him until his eyes swell up and two teeth fall from his mouth. Ribs cracked, bruised all over, they piss on him and leave him in his own blood.

*

"Is this what he did to you?" one leers; an unwelcome finger sliding along the crack of Luke's ass as he stands shivering in a frigid shower. "Did he make you feel special? Did he let you suck his dick? How many little boys do you think he's touched?"

Luke jabbing an elbow back. The guard grunting, cracking him over the head with a nightstick. Luke falling to his knees in agony. Depraved laughter echoing in the shower. A hand in Luke's hair forcing him forward. The rising burn of panic as his nose is crushed to another's groin, smothered with his vile scent.

"Show me what he made you do."

*

Four months, two weeks and a day: Luke never speaks a word.

"Please," turns to "I'm sorry."

Luke sobs as he comes.

Holding Luke's quaking body still is all that keeps Sylar from being sick.

***

They still get twin rooms but Luke invariably ends up in Sylar's bed. They don't do anything but sleep, Luke's arms and legs wrapped around Sylar, Sylar's chin resting on Luke's crown.

It's been a month since Luke last had a nightmare.

It's been a month since Sylar's started.

When Luke's well enough, Sylar vows they'll kill them all.

***

They find a town they like; there's a theatre that plays drive-in movies. When Luke reads out the apartments for rent listed in the morning paper, Sylar hands over a deposit, sight unseen, for the one Luke says sounds the coolest.

***

Their new bathroom is spacious. The water pressure is better than any motel they've stayed in. The open door policy is still loosely in place; Luke wanders in while Sylar's shaving. He uses safety razors now.

Luke stands beside Sylar at the sink, turning his head this way and that as he stares at himself in the mirror. The roundness of his cheeks is back, not so sunken, not so sallow. His eyes don't look so hollow and he's finally looking like his clothes fit him right again.

"My hair looks stupid," he says. His roots are a bright copper red, an inch of colour before the muted brown takes over. "We should dye it again."

"No," Sylar says softly, running his fingers through it. "I like it better like this."

Luke snorts, glancing at Sylar from the corner of his eye, fighting against the proud little grin that's pulling at his lips. "So I have to walk around two-toned like a skunk?"

"Nah," Sylar says and plucks a few strands from the nape of Luke's neck.

"Ow!"

"I'll get a dye that matches."

***

Sylar gives Luke a shopping list and tells him to behave.

He paces up and down the living room until Luke makes it back in one piece, arms loaded with bags, exactly forty-three minutes later.

Luke hasn't bought a single thing Sylar put on the list.

"What the hell?" he mutters as he pulls TV dinner after TV dinner from the bags Luke's dumped on the kitchen counter.

Luke smirks and nukes the one that Sylar's holding up in disbelief.

***

Some things never change. Luke still reads the paper while Sylar sips his coffee. In the background the Discovery Channel shows a documentary on the Laotian jungle.

"What's so funny?" Sylar asks.

Luke slides closer to him on the sofa, spreading the paper over Sylar's lap so he can see the Sunday comics too. "Spiderman's getting his ass kicked."

"Read it to me," Sylar murmurs. He slings an arm around Luke's shoulders, holding him in a one armed hug as Luke reads out the panels, improvising silly voices as he goes.

When Luke's done, Sylar smiles down at him and ruffles his hair. Luke's lips quirk into a grin, and then he darts forward impulsively, nearly spilling Sylar's coffee as he pecks him on the lips.

"Luke…" Sylar whispers.

"Thank you," Luke breathes.

"For what?" he asks as Luke nuzzles against him, resting their foreheads together.

"For coming back for me."


End file.
